At 6:03 PM -0400 8/24/07, David W. Fenton wrote:
Am I misinterpreting the discussion here? Is my position basically what all y'all were advocating? Or do even university-level and professional bands seldom/never adapt their instrumentation to the music they are playing?
No, I don't think you're misinterpreting at all. I've commented that there is really no standard instrumentation for concert band or wind ensemble, but another way of saying almost the same thing is that there are too many standard instrumentations! In the instrument lists you quoted and suggested, the one glaring omission is a saxophone section. And in the old pieces I've examined so far, some have saxes, some don't, and for those that do you find the soprano more often than 1st and 2nd altos.
As to adapting instrumentation to the music, I tried to point out that most bands do not and cannot, with the possible exceptions of the wind ensembles at large music schools or bands that consider themselves truly professional. And of course among that handful of professional bands we have to include the premier bands in each of the military services, and they cannot blithely add instruments to order because the players must be in the military and must be assigned to specific bands and have their own line in the Table of Organization.
And by the way, I agree with you that the best college wind ensembles should be included at the professional level, but only because there are so few truly professional wind ensemble, especially touring ensembles in existence today. Again, there's a world of difference between the band world and the orchestra world.
John -- John R. Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
